Noel’s Weekend Winners: Fair Grounds Focus with Risen Star, Mineshaft Picks

Welcome to Noel Michaels’ Weekend Winners, the place to go for weekend finest bets and spot performs from veteran handicapper and tournament-play pioneer Noel Michaels. Examine again each week for a few highlighted picks designed that will help you money a number of bets and make some cash.

Noel’s picks have been featured nearly in every single place horse racing picks might be discovered, together with in print within the Each day Racing Kind, The HorsePlayer Journal and American Turf Month-to-month, on-line at DRF.com, Twinspires.com and USRacing.com, from the paddock on-track at Arlington Worldwide Racecourse, and on the air on HRTV, TVG, NYC OTB Further, NYRA’s SatuTalking Horses, and on broadcast TV on WAVE-3 Louisville, ABC KOLO-8 in Reno, Nevada, and channel 72 Lengthy Island Cablevision.

Noel Michaels’ Weekend Winners is dropped at you by Horseplayers.com, the official on-line qualifying web site of the Breeders’ Cup Betting Problem (BCBC) and Nationwide Horseplayers Championship (NHC). Horseplayers.com presents low-cost feeders every single day and BCBC and NHC qualifiers each weekend, and it’s the one web site the place you may qualify for the $1.25 million BCBC. It’s free to enroll – click on right here to get details about registering and tips on how to enter contests.

Six Newbie Betting Instruments

1. Begin easy with a simple information for tips on how to guess on horse racing.
2. Undecided what that phrase means? Horse racing terminology is a language of its personal. Enable us translate for you
3. What the heck is a pace determine? This newbie’s information to hurry figures has all the pieces it’s worthwhile to know.
4. Betting on horse racing might be intimidating. Group ABR put collectively some Dos and Don’ts for the brand new fan getting began betting on racing.
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Saturday, Feb. 17

Racing at Truthful Grounds takes middle stage this Saturday with a sensational 14-race card that includes six stakes races, with 4 of them graded stakes. The function race would be the Grade 2 Risen Star Stakes, which is shaping up as probably the most loaded prep race we’ve seen to date in 2024 on the highway to the Kentucky Derby Introduced by Woodford Reserve. The undercard is an efficient one too. The three graded stakes main as much as the Risen Star all have high-quality fields and are good betting races that handicappers can sink their enamel into, together with the Grade 3 Mineshaft Stakes Introduced by Relyne GI by Hagyard for older horses on the principle monitor. For this weekend’s winners, let’s concentrate on the Mineshaft Stakes and the Risen Star. If we are able to decide the winners of those two options, we needs to be nicely on our method to a worthwhile day at Truthful Grounds this Saturday. Better of luck.

Truthful Grounds, Race 11, $250,000 Mineshaft Stakes Introduced by Relyne GI by Hagyard, submit time 5:50 p.m. ET

The Mineshaft Stakes will go at 1 1/16 miles on the principle monitor and has drawn a discipline of 9 older horses. The very first thing that’s obvious when wanting over the previous performances for this race is the shortage of pace entered within the discipline. That is excellent news for the probably pacesetter within the race, #3 Greatest Actor, who could have an opportunity to get out entrance to a simple lead and go wire-to-wire. Greatest Actor is a graded stakes winner earlier in his profession who appeared to rediscover his finest type late in 2023 with back-to-back front-running wins at Aqueduct and Churchill Downs for coach Brad Cox. Each wins had been with Flavien Prat aboard, and Prat might be again for the mount within the Mineshaft. He ought to management the tempo and have a superb alternative to go all the way in which. Maybe the horse to beat within the discipline if not for the tempo hurdle is #1 Purple Route One, winner of final yr’s Grade 3 West Virginia Derby for coach Steve Asmussen. Purple Route One is a deep nearer that might be on the lookout for some tempo to chase. In his final race, he was in a position to stalk barely nearer to the lead than typical en path to a runner-up end behind favored Saudi Crown within the Grade 3 Louisiana Stakes Introduced by Relyne GI by Hagyard. The same form of journey on this race ought to yield one other exacta end. #4 Gasoline invades for coach Todd Pletcher and could be the solely horse within the race able to placing strain on Greatest Actor if John Velazquez opts to ship him, primarily based on Gasoline’s spectacular back-to-back wins final fall at Churchill Downs. The issue for Gasoline is that his tactical pace and his general good type appear to have deserted him in his two latest races. Even when Gasoline can’t rebound on this spot, maybe he can strain Greatest Actor sufficient to offer Purple Route One an opportunity.

The Play: Guess to win on #3 Greatest Actor (3-1) and play him in an exacta field with #1 Purple Route One (5-1).

Truthful Grounds, Race 14, $400,000 Risen Star Stakes, submit time 7:17 p.m. ET

The Grade 2 Risen Star Stakes will check a full discipline of 3-year-old Kentucky Derby hopefuls at 1 1/8 miles within the first race on the highway to the Kentucky Derby that can provide 50 qualifying factors to the winner. This discipline has come up robust and is filled with horses that might transform legit contenders for the run for the roses, making it the definitive prep race run to date this season. #3 Honor Marie had a really promising finish to his 2-year-old marketing campaign final fall when successful the Grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Membership Stakes going 1 1/16 miles at Churchill Downs. He ought to have matured since then and his late run ought to get an awesome setup on this race with #11 Observe Phantom prone to be setting a pressured tempo up entrance. The 6-1 morning line odds are very attractive on a horse that was final seen ending 2023 on a excessive observe as arguably one of many prime Derby prospects we’ve seen up to now. Talking of Observe Phantom, it’s exhausting to poke holes in a horse like this that comes into the race off back-to-back wins in each of Truthful Grounds’ prior Derby prep races, the Gun Runner Stakes and the Grade 3 Lecomte Stakes. He’ll have a giant shot to make it three in a row, however he’ll be despatched by jockey Joel Rosario from his exterior submit and face elevated early strain up entrance from horses like #7 Corridor of Fame, #9 Cardinale, and doubtless #12 Bee Dancer. Chad Brown appears to have one other Derby contender this yr, and that’s #4 Sierra Leone, who when final seen ran nicely however suffered a tough-luck loss to the extremely regarded Dornoch within the Grade 2 Remsen Stakes. If the late-running Honor Marie will get a very good tempo setup, meaning Sierra Leone needs to be closing down the lengthy Truthful Grounds stretch run, as nicely.

The Play:  Guess #3 Honor Marie (3-1) to win and field him within the exactas and trifectas with #4 Sierra Leone (4-1) and #11 Observe Phantom (7-2).